XGO Software Tutorial

Use

This tutorial is designed to be used in a browser window which has the size
adjusted so that it occupies the right or left portion of the screen.
Alternately, it may be resized to occupy the upper or lower portion of the screen.
During the tutorial
you will be running programs in other windows. This tutorial assumes the user
is adept at basic window management, like resizing, minimizing (parking on the task bar )
and maximizing programs. To follow the tutorial and run the programs, you may need to
read a portion of it, minimize the tutorial, do something in a program, then maximize and
continue in the tutorial. Also, this process will work best if screen resolution is
1024 x 768 or better.

Purpose

The XGO program computes a forecast for any freely traded market
using only the first trade date of that market. It does this by
computing the natural energy received by that market from the
universe. It can also compute this energy function for any individual,
using their date of birth. These forecasts can be made for any date
in the future.

This energy function can be further processed to bring out the longer term
cycles. This is done by passing the XGO energy data through a Zero Delay (ZD)
filter. By selecting the appropriate length filter, long term forecasts can
be made months and years in advance.

These are forecasts, not guarantees. It has been found that a market
will tend to follow the XGO forecast, or its inverted forecast. On the
long term forecasts, the market may have short term deviations from the
forecast, but generally track the forecasts.

Using these forecasts in trading is like using a weather forecast.
One must be alert for the forecast not being correct. One needs
to look out the window before going on the picnic. Technical indicators
should be used to confirm the forecasts, and stop loss orders should
always be placed.

Computing an XGO Forecast

Now it is time to compute an XGO forecast. To do this, you need
to run the WinXGO program. To do this, use your mouse
to find the program by clicking on

Start

and following the folder tree

Start -> Programs -> MicroMedia -> WinXGO -> Launch WinXGO.exe

Double clicking on WinXGO will run the program.

When it runs, you will see a dialog box like this:

WinXGO computes a data file in a humanly readable text (ASCII) format.
Various trading programs can read text data in and overlay it on
a price plot. To produce a basic (raw) XGO file, all one has
to do is to enter the natal (first trade or birth) date , a date range for the output file,
a format, and name the output file.

To get you started, the program is preloaded with the natal
date for the S&P 500 (4/21/1982), and the specifies the
date range to be 1/1/2003 to 1/1/2004. The output file is
to be named sp.xgo, is to include all calendar days, and
is to have a ChaosTrader output format. The output will not
be delayed, and will be scaled by 10/10, or 1 , and not have
a bias number added to it. Bias numbers are needed to make the
output values positive, which is needed for some programs. The XGO values
by nature are negative numbers. A minimum value and maximum
value of the file are initially zero, since XGO has not been computed yet.

Click on the Compute XGO button. The S&P 500 XGO energy will
be computed and place in the current folder, which, unless you changed
it at installation, is c:/program files/micromedia/winxgo.

The program will compute the XGO file, and display this box.

Click on the OK button to acknowledge that WinXGO has done its job.
It produced an XGO forecast file for you, using the XGO formula.
Notice that the minimum value is now -48.46 .. and the maximum
value is zero. These values show you the range of the data in the XGO file.

Now all you have to do is get that file into a trading program so you can
see it.

This is easier said than done. How to do that varies with the trading
program you are using. And to be able to work with XGO files, you will
need to learn how to read the XGO file into your trading program. To aid
you in learning this process, we have include a copy of the Chaos Trader
EOD (end of day) program, and will show you how to load XGO files into it.

But before doing anything graphical with the XGO files, it is important that
you understand how to look at them. They are text files, which can be read
by any word processing program. They can also be read by the Notepad program
that comes with all versions of Windows. It is the preferred tool for looking
at XGO files.

You can open Notepad on your system by going to

Start -> Programs -> Accessories ->Notepad.

But WinXGO includes a version of Notepad. If you just click
on the View XGO button, it will start Notepad, and have it open
the XGO file you just computed-in this case, sp.xgo. Do that now.

You will see a window like this:

Each day has a single value, the energy given to the market or
person by the universe for that day. Think of this as current
flow into a battery. The value is negative because the universe
is charging up the market. Representing the energy values this
way gives the normal energy pattern. In this pattern, lows in the XGO
are normally market or personal lows.

Now, suppose your trading program cannot accept negative numbers.
All you do is to add a bias. The XGO calculation normally does
not go under -200, so adding a bias of 200 will make the numbers
all positive values. It does now matter what the value really is,
because what you are interested in are the relative motions
up and down.

So close the notepad window, and adjust the Bias * to add value to 200.
You can use the spinner control beside the box to run this number up and down,
or you can just type in the number. Once you have done this, recompute the
XGO file, and view it again.

Now you find the minimum value 151.533084 and the maximum value 200.
When you look at the file, all values are positive. Positive values
look like prices, so all trading programs can read them.

Now look at the Output Days portion of the dialog box. ChaosTraderEOD
uses calendar days. It works with astrocycles, which never take weekends
or holidays. But you may need to create a file for a program that uses
only week days or trading days. You do this by checking the appropriate
circle.

But how does WinXGO know when the holidays are? You have to tell it.
To do this, you need to maintain entries in a holidays.txt file.
This, like the XGO files, are text files that can be read, changed, and
written by Notepad. Again, to make this easy, WinXGO has a button to
open Notepad, and read the holidays.txt file. Click on the
Edit Holidays button. You will something like this:

These are the holiday dates for the US markets. You may need to change this file
for your markets, and add new holiday dates as time goes on. Just add the
changes to the file and save it.

To see how this works, make a change, save the holidays.txt file, close Notepad, and re-open it.

Now recompute the sp.xgo file using the Trading Days selection.
Then view the file. It should look like this:

Note that New Year's Day 1/1/2003 and Martin Luther King's Day 1/20/2003 and
all the weekends are missing from the data file. After seeing this, close the Notepad window.

Now look at the Output File Format portion of the dialog box.
This set of selections lets you pick a file format that can be read by your
trading program. Most popular trading programs as well as spreadsheets are
supported. In addition, WinXGO can generate a custom format, meaning it can generate
an output file readable by any trading program.

Some programs can accept data with decimals in them. Some cannot. On the dialog box,
X indicates a decimal value of the XGO energy, like 191.302. The letter I indicates
the integer (whole number) part of the XGO energy, like 191.

To see how this works, select the Ensign format, compute XGO, and view it.
You should get something like this:

This is an example of a format that needs quotes around the date, and separates the
month, day, and year with a dash. It also requires open, high, low, and close values.
XGO can formulate these from the raw XGO data. Then Ensign wants a number for volume,
and another for open interest. These mean nothing for a XGO file, so a 1 is supplied
to satisfy the format.

So if you pick the appropriate format, you can generate an XGO file for almost
any trading program. You may want to try the various formats to see what they
each look like. One note: the CSV file format is Comma Separated Variables, a
standardized file format. This format optionally has a first line, called a header,
that tells the reading program what is in each column. WinXGO does not add such a
header. However, it can easily be added by viewing the file in Notepad, adding the
required header line ( determined by your trading program), and saving the file
with the header line in it.

What do you do if your program needs some other format?

You use the
custom format option. By entering a string of characters, you can specify exactly
how the output file will appear. This looks frightening, but is actually very simple.
If you know that one of the standard formats will work for you, you can skip ahead
to the next section.

The XGO program has a default custom format string of

"%02ds!M%02ds!D%04d"s!Y%8.3f!X

This is really four format specifiers-one for the month, ending in !M
( print M), one for the day, ending in !D, one for the year, ending in !Y,
and one for the XGO value, ending in !X. Ahead of each ! (print) character,
is the format to use to print that item.

Quote marks are printed as is. So are commas, slashes, and dashes - the common
date separators. Spaces are indicated by the letter s. The digits 0-9 are
also "passed through" unless they are part of a numeric field specifier.

The start of a numeric value field is indicated by %.
Numeric values are
specified as having decimal places (floating point number), with a small letter f, or
having just a whole number, by specifying the letter d.

Each field, or column, is specified with a width. Width is the number of characters used to print
the value, including any decimal point. If the width number follows a 0,
zeros will be inserted ahead of the number to fill out the width. In a decimal
number, a . followed by a number specifies how many decimal places follow
the decimal place. The decimal place takes up one space in the field.

So
"%02ds!M
means to print a ", then the month in a two character field, using leading zeros, followed
by a space. And %02ds!D means print the day in 2 characters with leading zeros, followed
by a space. Then %04d"s!Y prints the year in 4 digits, and adds a quote and a space.
Finally, %8.3f!X prints out the XGO value in an 8 character field with 3 decimal places.

To see how this all works, select the custom format, compute XGO, and view it.
You should see something like this:

That's great, but what about adding dummy volume, and faking the open interest?
The answer is the !E, which just means to print an empty field. The only
thing printed is the characters in the format specifier that "pass through"

For example, try the custom format (hint: copy and paste it into WinXGO)

"%02d-!M%02d-!D%02d",!Z%.3f!X,1,1,!E

It will produce output like this:

An integer (whole number) value for XGO is specified with a !I.
Try this format: "%02ds!M%02ds!D%04d"s!Y%7d!I

It produces

Rearranging the month, day, and year is no problem. Try
%04d/!Y%02d/!M%02ds!D%7d!IIt will give

Filling in leading zeros for a fixed width format is easy. Try
%04d/!Y%02d/!M%02d,!D%07d!IIt will give

And if you need a two digit year, use !Z rather than !Y. Try
%02d/!Z%02d/!M%02d,!D%07d!I

It will give

The custom format will let you make your XGO file readable by almost any program.
Adding Chiron

You are encouraged to find a commercial source for your data, and not rely on it being available
on my website. Someday I will retire, and the site may not be available. If you continue to use
CTEOD, I highly recommend getting data from TBSP.com, which is where my data comes from.
They support data export to an ASCII (text) file, in what CTEOD recognizes as a .PRN format.

If you chose to use another trading program,
you need to learn how to load the XGO forecast files into it. In that case, you can track the
forecast with traditional technical indicators. This is a bit of work, but worth the effort.
Once set up, XGO is a powerful trading
technology.